HYDE CHESHIRE

Harry Rutherford's Festival of Britain Mural

Sunday, 29 April 2012

Walls Remembered

From
the Hyde Official Guide, about 1965

The extract from the
guide reads:-

"Renowned
through the country for its sausages, bacon, pies, hams and canned meats is the
firm of T.WALL & SONS (MEAT & HANDY FOODS) LTD. Starting in 1786 in a small shop in London's
Jermyn Street the business grew steadily and by 1939 its trade covered the
whole of southern England. Since 1854 it has expanded to cover the rest of the
country and in this the Hyde factory plays an important part. Wall's hold the
largest single share of the branded sausage market and Royal Warrants have been
held for most of the reigns of monarchs since the 18th century. Future plans
include the extension to the factory at Hyde to give still further coverage in
Northern England."

The Administration Buildings

Our friend Marjorie Robinson made this post possible, which we thank her for.

Marjorie mentioned that some of her school friends had part-time jobs at Wall's in the summer holidays. They told her they'd never eat a walls pie again... ha! This reminded me of a school trip to Walls from Greenfield Street School... we were led around different bays and one or two lads started to feel ill... by the time we had got to the black pudding making section they was a rush for the doors. I can still see one of the workers laughing and waving a black pudding about. Needless to say Black Pudding were given a wide berth.

Please add your comments and memory's of Walls and the products... I'm sure many of you will have some.

17 comments:

Anonymous
said...

Barry in Oz. My first job after leaving school, as a Van Lad at Walls, driving round Manchester City Centre delivering Bacon. I did it for 12 months then got a job as a Trainees Chef in the Canteen. By the way, on the second photo the small square building at the front was the canteen and the large building behind it was the Admin block. I never forget the sight of a dozen slaughtermen chasing a Boar down the main road and through the train tunnel that had escaped from the slaughter house.

Barry in Oz. Lost your email. Go on ancestry and click on to family trees. Put in the name of your relative from Staffordshire, and look for the family trees of the Redford family, the Winter family, and Margaret Rogers. I think you might be pleasantly surprised.

I worked the evening shifts at Walls 1973-1977 when my daughters were little. I was on the last minute sometimes clocking on as I had to wait for my husband getting home from work to mind the girls, and there were loads of stairs to climb up to the sausage dept where I worked, we linked the sausages and put them on hooks to go round the corner to be packed, you knew they were getting in trouble round the packing side when the sausages came back round again on the hooks, that was a cue for me to go give them a hand packing! I also worked a while in the bacon dept. You earned your money at Walls, but I have never minded hard work and that four hour shift flew by. But I never ate Walls sausage or bacon again!

Hi, I wonder if you could please help me. I'm looking for someone who worked in the factory in the late 1970's. He was of black Carribean origin His name is Guy/Guyton. I dont have a surname sorry. Any information would be a great help. This would make my sister in laws day if you could find out any information. Thank you .

I started out as a relief salesman in 1984. Became senior salesman (because nobody else wanted to) and worked the vans for five years or so. when central delivery came along and the smaller customers were dropped I went into the factory working in the newly developed ready meals plant (meals for Tesco). Finally ended up as an accountant and hitched my pants up and left when Kerry Foods took over. Best days of my working life :) Peter

Hi my father,Donald Southwell was the General Manager of the Walls meat factory at Godley,Hyde.Don was the southern area sales manager for Walls ice cream and was based in Croydon.He was promoted to take over the Hyde factory in 1955, eventually being made redundant in 1971.

My name is cheryl I'm looking for saeed akthar who worked on sausage floor in 1977/1978.I know he moved to America but does anybody know how I can find him he will be around 70plus now so I'm running out of time any help would be spook aprecated thank you

My name is Jim Platt, I worked in meat prep from 1962 - 1966. Boning out mutton and pork. My manager at the time was Mr Hanrahan, my uncle Eli Storah was superviser in the loading bay. After leaving Walls I went to live in Denmark and carried on working in the meat industry until I went onto pension in 2009.

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